Saturday,
December 27, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Tia Solomon scored a game-high 20 points for Fair Lawn, which won its own Holiday Tournament for the third straight year with a 51-48 win over Bloomfield on Friday. |
FAIR LAWN – It was going to be hard for the Fair Lawn girls basketball team to top itself in the holiday tournament it hosts. Last year the Cutters got a conventional 3-point play from Tia Solomon in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter to tie the score before going on to beat North Bergen in overtime to win the Fast Break Classic. Trailing Bloomfield 10 points entering the fourth quarter of this year's final played on Friday afternoon, Fair Lawn was going to need another spirited finish to win the tournament for the third straight year.
And spirited was just one way to describe what happened in the final five minutes. Bloomfield lost its point guard to an ejection after a flagrant foul with 3:23 to play and the Fair Lawn comeback that was already unfolding hit full stride shortly after. The Cutters scored the final six points of the game over the final 1:42 to pull out an improbable 51-48 win.
“I knew we could do it because, in this tournament, it always seems like we find a way to come through in the last minute. We play as a team, we work together and we don't give up and that always gives you a chance,” said Solomon, now Fair Lawn's senior center who was all over the stat sheet on Friday. “Last year we were down by 3 with 10 seconds left, we tied it and won in overtime. We knew we just had to keep working hard and something like that could happen again.”
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Bloomfield's Grace Connor scored 15 of her team-high 17 points in the first half. |
The differences between the two teams were stark as Bloomfield was at its best when it was creating turnovers with its press after every made basket, while Fair Lawn excelled when it was able to break the pressure and get into the halfcourt where it could look for Solomon inside. Bloomfield was especially effective late in the first half after it had forced the Cutters into an extended period of up-and-down effort.
Fair Lawn led 15-10 after the first quarter and 21-18 after a Solomon putback, but Bloomfield closed the first half on a 9-3 run to grab a 27-24 lead heading into the break. It was late in the third quarter that the Bengals really hit the gas. With the game tied at 33 after Fair Lawn's Tara VanderTeens hit a jumper, Bloomfield went on a 8-0 run over the final four minutes. The first six of those points came in the span of just 32 seconds and it looked like the game had changed in the Bengals' favor for good, especially when Sam Corio opened the fourth quarter with a jumper from the corner to stretch the lead to 43-33, the largest for either team in the game.
Fair Lawn's Alexis Kriley was named the Tournament MVP for her total body of work in the 64 minutes over two games in wins over Fort Lee and then against Bloomfield, but it was the shot she hit from the wing with 6:01 left in the fourth quarter that might have been her most important contribution. It kicked off a 9-1 run that got the Cutters right back in the game. Solomon scored inside, Stephanie Lescheck made a hoop and a free throw and Nancy Ruff scored off a high/low with the assist going to Solomon, an excellent interior passer. Lescheck's free throw had the Cutters to within 44-42 with 3:23 to play.
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Fair Lawn's Alexis Kriley scored 11 points and was named the Tournament's MVP. |
“There pressure gave us more trouble than I would have liked, but we are still feeling our way through this early part of the season. We are still getting to know each and learning our strengths and weaknesses,” said Fair Lawn head coach Chris Lovermi. “We had to have a lot of people step up and come through. Lescheck, Alexis Kriley, Brittany Kriley, Nancy Ruff, Tia Solomon all had their moments and that is what we need; a complete team effort.”
Bloomfield might have had another run it, but with 3:23 left Jenndoyak Austin was called for the flagrant foul during a scrum at midcourt and was ejected with Fair Lawn also getting two technical free throws and possession out of the deal. Although Fair Lawn made just one of two from the line and came up empty on its offensive set, settling for a one-point deficit, Bloomfield lost its point guard, the tip of the spear on its press and its best distributor of the basketball.
That forced Grace Connor to the point and she is a capable ballhandler, but she is also the player that Bloomfield's best shooter and the player the Bengals would rather have on the receiving end of passes in open space. Connor did hit a baseline jumper to extend Bloomfield's lead back to three points and it was there again when Aniyah Allen scored inside to make it 48-45 with 2:01 left, but those were the Bengals' final points.
Alexis Kriley set up Ruff for an easy basket that cut the lead to one and Solomon gave Fair Lawn the lead for good when she grabbed an offensive board and made to free throws to put her team up for good with 57 seconds left. Alexis Kriley then made both ends of a one-and-one to extend the Cutters' advantage to three before Lescheck made the last big defensive play of the game.
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Bloomfield's Aniyah Allen scored 11 of her 15 points after halftime. |
Not the most obvious candidate to block a shot in the dwindling seconds of a one-possession game, Lescheck sprinted out to the corner and got a hand on a Bloomfield 3-point attempt to all but seal the win with 8 seconds left.
“It was nerve-wracking for sure, but I had to find a way to deny that shot without fouling,” said Lescheck. “I had to get out and close on her because that was what I was told to do and I got there just in time.”
Solomon, who is running free and easy just nine months removed for ACL surgery, is more of a conventional shot blocker and she had four of them to go along with her game-high 20 points. She also had 9 rebounds and 4 assists, all of them from the high post to Ruff in the low block. Ruff (11 points) and Alexis Kriley (11 points) made it three Cutters in double figures. Lescheck scored all 5 of her points in the first half, Alison Hyde scored all 3 of hers in the fourth quarter and VanderTeens' third quarter field goal rounded out the scoring for Fair Lawn (2-2).
Connor scored 15 of her team-high 17 points in the first half and Allen scored 11 of her 15 in the second half for Bloomfield. Austin had 8 points and 5 assists before being disqualified.
“The flagrant foul was a big part of the game, but I thought we did a good job of taking advantage of it. We became the aggressor, which was important, and we kind of dominated the last couple of minutes, which every coach likes to see his team do,” said Lovermi. “We just have to continue to get better. This was a confidence builder, a good win on our own home floor against a good team. We lost our first two games and now we have won our last two, so we are heading in the right direction.”
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